Bob Greaves, 103, awarded RSL life membership for 50 years of service
Bob Greaves, a 103-year-old veteran from Ballarat, has just been awarded RSL life membership for 50 years of service.
Reported by The CourierClaims checked against the source, 18 h ago.
ShareWhy it matters
His story reminds us that the home front, the truck drivers, the supply lines, the camp workers, was as vital to winning World War II as combat overseas.
In Australia. Ballarat residents and Australian WWII history buffs now have a living record of the overlooked transport and logistics effort that underpinned the war.
Key facts
- 103
- Greaves' current age
- 18
- Age when called up
- 40
- Approximate trips to Darwin
- 50
- RSL service years
- Greaves joined the 121st Transport Company during World War II as an 18-year-old driver.
- Greaves made roughly 40 trips between Adelaide and Darwin ferrying fuel and supplies to troops.
- He travelled through outback dust, floods and heat, sleeping under trucks and battling mosquito nets and flies.
- After a knee injury ended his long-distance runs, he drove at the Murchison Prisoner of War camp in Victoria, where he met his wife May, a postal clerk.
- Greaves' story highlights the home front effort, the quiet work of ordinary Australians keeping the war effort alive.
- This role rarely appears in history books.
- Greaves is one of Ballarat's last surviving WWII veterans.
